Five Web Design Mistakes To Avoid

Since the late 80’s, marketers have been tinkering with web design. That’s nearly 30 years of lessons gathered over time over what works and when. That hasn’t stopped an assortment of mistakes from coming up repeatedly. Indeed, in our weekly task of onboarding a new client we come across five mistakes every marketer has directed.

Here they are and some corrections:

1. The Eagerness for Messages to be SeenIt’s a well established fact that when faced with too many choices, footfall and online shoppers turn away or hang around for too long. This is why most conversion specific sites should aim to provide limited options while clearly defining the value being offered. Cluttering a screen with a plethora of choices is not only frustrating to look out but also the fastest way to permanently becoming the site no one wants to visit. Throughout the UX, aim to establish a strategic hierarchy to guarantee the design directs the visitor towards the intended objective. 800Flower.ae does an amazing job at this.

2. Prioritizing Flash Instead of SubstanceThe fastest way to annoy a site visitor is to keep them as far away from the intended visitation goal as possible. While it’s true that some sites such as digital publisher (e.g. Forbes) will exploit transition pages to curb bounce rate, data reflects that the users willingness to return is dramatically affected by these pages, evident by their exit rates. It’s better to prioritize content and the user experience to ensure the visitor is naturally guided towards the end goal. Focus on the strategy and everything will fall into place.

3. Forgetting the Mobile Aspect RatioThere’s study after study pointing to mobile, rightfully so, as the prime device for information research and path to purchase browsing. Even while living it, marketers continue to ignore the responsive design process, hoping that the desktop experience will translate well into the mobile one. When making the transition, conduct competitive research and dive deep into the web design mobile strategy for a customer centric approach.

4. An Inconsistent User InterfaceImagine hovering over on an icon and seeing that your cursor has not transformed to reflect a the commonly associated icon for click through. Improperly placed UI elements were a big part of our transition workload in 2016, inheriting poorly designed sites that existed for its own sake, instead of to allow browsing ease. The experience should be frictionless, clear and consistent.

5. Taking A/B Testing Too FarThere’s nothing wrong with testing various colors, button sizes, conversion phrasing and the like. But there’s something off about doing it through a single landing page. We saw many instances where the buy now icon changed color from time to time, the phrasing for conversion as well, shifting from “contribute” to “purchase” to “Now” over and over. Don’t let color add confusion to the user experience. Establish a hierarchy early on.

Let’s resolve to correct the web design wrongs of 2016 in 2017. And let’s place content strategy and the visitors interests ahead of our own.

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Ahsan Khalid is the director of technology at Centric DXB. He is a trusted partner for clients as well as internal cross-disciplinary teams to ensure quality relationships. He can be reached on ahsan.khalid@centric.ae